The mosaic of lives

The Qatar Education City's students have teamed up to establish a charity organisation in an effort to contribute to the country's community needs. The student-run charity Al Kawthar was named after the river in paradise to symbolise an overflowing of generosity.

The initiative was launched by a group of students from several universities, including Virginia Commonwealth, Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon, who decided to combine their skills to help those in need.

Al Kawthar offers ways to improve their quality of life whether through providing families with necessities such as air conditioners, stoves and refrigerators or redesigning small apartments for greater efficiency and comfort.

"We thought about how the different subjects being taught in the different universities can help people," said Reem Al Sai, a student at Virginia Commonwealth University and president of Al Kawthar.

Reem explained how she used her design skills to transform a small, cluttered room shared by seven inhabitants into a functional space better suited to meet their basic needs.

Those needs included space for all seven people to sleep and space to store their clothes, which she had found in labelled garbage bags, lined along the floor of one wall.

Al Kawthar provided them with a cupboard for the clothes, which, by being removed from the floor, created more space for Reem to use in her transformation of the apartment.

Yousuf Murad, a student at Texas A&M University at Qatar and Al Kawthar's public relations officer, explained the organisation's philosophy. "Our goal is not to give money but to try and solve the root of the problem."

The students find time in their busy schedules to meet once a week for 90 minutes, to carry on with their projects and come up with new ideas.

"We are helping ourselves by helping them," said Nora Al Subai, Al Kawthar's secretary and student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Their first fundraising project was Al Kawthar night in October last year.

For 20 riyals per ticket, 250 students, faculty and staff from Education City who came to the event were entertained by a guest speaker who spoke about charity work, a bazaar selling Indian items, rock and crystal carving and traditional Arab costumes the invitees could be photographed wearing. The night was sponsored by Al Bukhari.

Next year, however, Al Kawthar plans to expand its scope to include other charity projects, including creating jobs and raise money through exhibitions.

Al Kawthar is already in the process of creating a new donation programme in which each university will sponsor one family per week, by raising money and providing necessities for them.

The charity also plans to create a relationship with an orphanage and set up a system so that the children may be sponsored through monthly donations, which would pay for their clothes, food, education and general needs. Contact Al Kawthar on Al-kawthar@yahoogroups.com.